Yorkshire energy ?

masonic

YorkieMan2 said:

SP are still unable to confirm that they are my Electricity supplier.  Should I put them in touch with Northern Powergrid who, more than two weeks ago, informed me that my supplier was SP?

Why not leave them, and then they can decide whether or not they were your electricity supplier and whether or not they wish to bill you for any energy at their leisure.

masonic

ThinWilly said:

I switched to E.on from Scottish Power/Yorkshire Energy and the switch went through but there was problems with entering a meter reading with the electricity )because Scottish Power kept taking the supplies back). As a result Scottish Power way over estimated the electricity on the final bill. I gave them the correct reading as soon as I got the final bill and saw it was completely wrong but have received a message saying they are unable to change the readings or the final bill because there is an active direct debit on the account but I will be refunded once the direct debit is collected and the payment order is no longer active.

No money has been taken from my account yet. I was with Scottish Power in the past and I have never known them stick to an estimated read for a final bill before once they have been given the correct readings, it all seems very fishy and I wonder what my chances are of actually getting a refund.

Would I be better off cancelling the direct debit and asking for a new bill with the actual readings or will this put me in more trouble in terms of cerdit rating etc or getting a revised bill. I normally wouldn't consider doing something like cancelling a direct debit but honestly Scottish Power have proven to be dishonest and underhand so I am considering it if it won't make things worse.

I must say the advice we have been given is shocking. We were told to stay with Scottish Power until the account was set up, only for it to take six weeks to set up an account by which time all the good tariffs had vanished into thin air -  bad advice. Told to set up a direct debit only to be told the reason they can't give me an accurate bill is because I have an active direct debit - bad advice.

I will be staying away from these little energy providers from now on and of course Scottish Power due to this, I think it has been handled very poorly.

The process is that you give E.On an opening reading within 5 days of your switch date, E.On then validates it and sends it to SP. SP must use the validated reading provided by E.On as your closing reading. If you did not supply E.On with a reading within 5 days of your supply date then an estimated reading would have been used (this can also happen if the readings you supplied were outside the tolerance bands of the national database). You should therefore take this up with E.On, they may be able to dispute the estimated reading if you can provide photographic evidence of the actual read on the appropriate date.

The part about them not being able to bill you correctly because you have a DD is complete rubbish. Most of their customers have DDs set up and get billed correctly, they want people to retain their DD when switching so they can take a final payment or process an electronic refund to a known active bank account.

If you waited 6 weeks (i.e. until w/c 18th January) to start a switch to E.On, then something doesn't add up as the earliest possible switch date would have been just a few days ago, so SP couldn't possibly have received validated final meter reads from E.On, and you are still within the 5 day window for providing opening reads to E.On. A final bill from SP should not come until several weeks later (I left SP two and a half weeks ago and have not received a final bill yet). You are also the first person to report difficulties switching from SP to another supplier after SP gained your supply. Are you sure you didn't start your switch before SP was registered as your electricity supplier on the national database?

ThinWilly

I couldn't supply E.on with a reading for the electricity. I was supposed to supply the readings on the 18th of January but could only put in the Gas. I rang Scottish Power and they said they had taken over both supplies on the 6th of December. I didn't say I waited I said it was bad advice to wait because it has taken at least six weeks to set up an account, some people longer.

I have taken it up with E.on as well since I couldn't enter the reading on their website. E.on said 'We’ll use these readings to start your supply with us and will share these readings with your previous supplier. It can take up to 6 weeks to get a final bill from your old supplier, since the meter readings between both suppliers will be checked by the national database.'

Scottish Power have already generated a final bill though which is wildly inaccurate.

The point of the post is to know where I would stand if i cancelled my direct debit. Do you have any advice on that? Would they then generate an accurate bill based on my actual reading? The bill they have generated cannot be in any tolerances for the electricity because I have lived here ten years and it is way over anything I have used during this period in the past ten years.

ThinWilly

I should add that they have used the reading I submitted to E.on for the Gas dated from the 18th just estimated the electricity and told me to contact them with the correct readings if it was wrong because it is an estimate. I contacted them with the accurate reading and they now saying they can't change the bill for the reasons stated. So my question can I cancel the direct debit and will this allow them to generate an accurate bill. I don't see how the bill they have generated are in any tolerance band (or does that just apply to the customer) it is not even close.

masonic

ThinWilly said:

I couldn't supply E.on with a reading for the electricity. I was supposed to supply the readings on the 18th of January but could only put in the Gas. I rang Scottish Power and they said they had taken over both supplies on the 6th of December. I didn't say I waited I said it was bad advice to wait because it has taken at least six weeks to set up an account, some people longer.

SP did not gain any supplies before 29th December on the national database, some were quite a bit later than that. That is what matters. If you didn't wait then that is the origin of the attempts from SP to take over your supply further down the line. So that is a problem of your making unfortunately. I'm not saying it was a bad move to switch earlier than that contrary to advice, some have achieved a good outcome from it, but you have to accept such difficulties are a risk of doing so.

I'm still not clear why you could not provide the readings to E.On, presumably you had sight of your meter. If there was an issue with online submission perhaps they could have been phoned through?

ThinWilly said:

I have taken it up with E.on as well since I couldn't enter the reading on their website. E.on said 'We’ll use these readings to start your supply with us and will share these readings with your previous supplier. It can take up to 6 weeks to get a final bill from your old supplier, since the meter readings between both suppliers will be checked by the national database.'

This is correct advice.

ThinWilly said:

Scottish Power have already generated a final bill though which is wildly inaccurate.

Presumably this bill is based on the estimated read E.On used as your initial starting read. As this is now disputed, you will need to wait for the new readings to work their way through the system for a revised bill to be generated.

ThinWilly said:

The point of the post is to know where I would stand if i cancelled my direct debit. Do you have any advice on that? Would they then generate an accurate bill based on my actual reading? The bill they have generated cannot be in any tolerances for the electricity because I have lived here ten years and it is way over anything I have used during this period in the past ten years.

The tolerance limit is about 2.5x average usage. The DD is not stopping them from producing a revised bill, they must wait for the reading you supplied to E.On to be validated and passed to them. You may wish to stop them collecting payment for the disputed bill, but it may be a better option to use the Direct Debit Guarantee to refund any erroneous payments while leaving the DD active.

[Deleted User]

I must say that I am amazed at the inconsistency of process and customer service meted out by SP. Usually I'm all in favour of the personal touch, but as applied by SP, this seems to manifest itself as treating every customer differently, or divide and rule.

My latest situation is that YE is sorted, and I have received an initial bill from SP incorporating actual readings up until yesterday 5/2. As suspected it is massive, and bears no relation to my YE charges last year. Having said that, January was inordinately cold here.
However, at the moment, I only have a bottom line total, and no detail for checking calculations. Apparently that is 'pending'. Meanwhile, SP are due to claim a direct debit on Monday. Whether they do, and for what value is anybody's guess. How can you plan and budget under these circumstances? 

ThinWilly

I really don't know what the best thing to do is with regards to the direct debit.

I wasn't moaning just outlining what happened and why, although I think they have taken far too long. Scottish Power said they had taken over supply on the 6th, they never mentioned anything about the database or when or if it was added to that, I can only work with what they tell me, it would actually be nice if they did explain every corner of any given situation as it would lead to a much clearer understanding for me. Although had I known then I would have liked to know why it had taken until the 29th because this would seem to allow a window other suppliers to take over the supply. I have gotten more information from you in this thread than I ever got from Scottish Power when I have contacted them.

Also I have found it hard to get anything simple done by ringing even getting readings added by either. I had readings and even have time stamped photos of most readings. I just couldn't enter them online and ringing up/live chat proved either impossible because it is during office hours or if I do get through they just don't do anything. I have some quite funny transcripts where they just disconnect the chat, I wasn't rude or argumentative just asked them to enter my readings,then when I checked they still weren't on.

YorkieMan2

Has anyone had any dealings with an SP employee who has an English name?  Is part of the problem that their customer 'service' is outsourced to India/Bangldesh?

Burryshmee

[Deleted User] said:

Burryshmee said:

Phones4Chris said:

macman said:

If it were a regulatory requirement then there is a case to be made for it coming off the final bills. Though, as you say, I won't be holding my breath.

My understanding is that SP (as the SoLR) would have to cover any shortfall once final billing is done, since our credit balances are protected. The challenge here would be getting that £30 onto our balance in the first place.

I think we'd be better whistling in the wind than thinking we could get £30 compo

I complained to SP a couple of weeks ago, and chanced my arm, asked for £30 per fuel and got a £60 credit immediately.

Well done - let us know when it appears in your account.

It came through straight away - I can see in my account they've given me the £60 credit

masonic

ThinWilly said:

I really don't know what the best thing to do is with regards to the direct debit.

I wasn't moaning just outlining what happened and why, although I think they have taken far too long. Scottish Power said they had taken over supply on the 6th, they never mentioned anything about the database or when or if it was added to that, I can only work with what they tell me, it would actually be nice if they did explain every corner of any given situation as it would lead to a much clearer understanding for me. Although had I known then I would have liked to know why it had taken until the 29th because this would seem to allow a window other suppliers to take over the supply. I have gotten more information from you in this thread than I ever got from Scottish Power when I have contacted them.

Also I have found it hard to get anything simple done by ringing even getting readings added by either. I had readings and even have time stamped photos of most readings. I just couldn't enter them online and ringing up/live chat proved either impossible because it is during office hours or if I do get through they just don't do anything. I have some quite funny transcripts where they just disconnect the chat, I wasn't rude or argumentative just asked them to enter my readings,then when I checked they still weren't on.

I would only cancel the DD if you don't want them to be able to take a payment to cover the incorrect bill, and you don't want to go through the hassle of DD guarantee claim.

It will make life easier if it is still active when the correct bill is produced. Part of the problem is that front line customer services are generally not experts (far from it), so many people have been given incorrect information, or information that would relate to a normal switch, not where a supplier has failed. That's why this thread has been so useful.

It should not have taken until 29th December for them to take over our supplies, it's a 14 day process, so they were slow in kicking it off. With the benefit of hindsight, I'm sure many more of us would have started a switch immediately on hearing YE had failed. The only downside with doing that is repeated attempts by SP to claim the supply, even after a different switch has completed.